2015 Li Paper

Please hand in a hard copy in class on Monday, February 2, 2015.

Purpose

This paper asks you to pull together material from our readings and class discussions to date, with Li’s Village China as your primary source, supplemented by the “Living” video and class discussion. For reference, here is the Contracts Memo from class.

Topic

The following topic is a suggestion, not a mandate. However, it is best to email or talk to me if you wish to write about a different topic.

Standard Interpretation

The standard view stresses the role of incentives: agriculture under Mao was an unmitigated disaster, subsequent reforms an unrivaled success, the story is socialism versus markets. In this black-and-white depiction, incentives under collectivization were poor, institutions unworkable, planning a failure, and production teams a disaster.

Your Argument

Play “devil’s advocate” and argue that (at least since the Great Leap Forward) agriculture slowly improved, and that improvements were accelerating at the time that collectivization was (forcibly) ended. Do not go to the opposite extreme of arguing that incentives were irrelevant; instead, argue that other factors were primary. Remember, if incentives were “it”, then we should have seen (i) strong growth before Mao came to power, (ii) no growth under collectives, that is, until a year or two after the implementation Household Responsibility System (HRS), (iii) then a big spurt, and (iv) then no growth – after all, the shift to the HRS was a one-time event!

But that is not what happened – right? (You need to marshal data from the Li book!) What else mattered? — non-labor inputs? prices? comparative advantage? technology? other elements that might affect total agricultural output. Remember that this is a paper, so you need a clear theme. That is, focus on one factor, justifying why you chose it.

Format

The paper (as per the syllabus) is to be cleanly presented (double-spaced, 1″ margins, 11-12pt font, a blank line to separate paragraphs, a properly formatted bibliography) and handed in as a hard copy with a backup to your drop-box in Sakai.

Get someone else to edit your penultimate copy (including, but not limited to, proofreading). The CommCenter is another (indeed, near-ideal!) alternative. If you can get them to critique your argument, great! To that end, someone in the class is ideal as they will be better able to offer substantive comments on your argument and examples. Do acknowledge their contribution!

An economics paper is not an exercise in creative writing, nor should it employ the wooden, formulaic prose of a physics paper. Make sure that you (i) do not use passive voice and (ii) avoid informality (contractions) and excessive formality (the royal “we” suggests it is not your own work, and hence is in violation of the Honor Code). Make sure that (iii) paragraphs really are – anything beyond a half-page is suspect – that (iv) sentences are not run-ons (anything that continues beyond 3 lines lines almost surely is), and that (v) you don’t rely on spell-check, which for example fails to distinguish “lead” from “led”. In general, poor prose hurts your grade, plus it often reflect the lack of a clear argument: it’s hard to write crisp sentences and proper paragraphs when you’re not sure what you want to say.

The paper ought to be filled with concrete examples, evidenced by quotes, numbers and references to Huang et al and especially Village China. Use inline citations and end-of-paper bibliography, not footnotes and not endnotes. Add the (first) last name with the first citation, and thereafter only the page number, until you switch sources. For example:

If you draw on a class handout or lecture notes, insert that in the bibliography as well, with the handout title or lecture title and date or blog page. See my lists of readings on WordPress for one format for your bibliography; the links to “Citation Styles…” on the Leyburn home page contain others.

Structure

Your paper should have a clear theme, a question that you will answer (or otherwise argue), outlined in an introduction. That typically requires one paragraph, sometimes two, but never three. Then make your case, which will likely require at least three but seldom much more than five pages. At the end state your conclusion, again the better part of a page. It should not reiterate your introduction – that may (sometimes) be acceptable for a book, but never for a short paper. A good length will thus be about 5 pages, plus your name, proofreader acknowledgment, pledge and the bibliography and any tables or graphs you might append. (While tables are not necessary, economists do like to see numbers.)

In sum, it’s hard to write a short paper if your theme is vague or unduly broad; it’s counterproductive to write a long paper if you have a crisp, clear topic.